


suffer the children

by PikaCheeka



Series: suffer the children [1]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M, Medical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: Sometimes experiments go badly. They all know this, but Virus doesn't expect he might have to wonder about who might take Trip's place in the dorm, much less care about it.(Little ViTri, obviously!)





	suffer the children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acatfeet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatfeet/gifts).



> Dedicated to acatfeet, who more or less drafted the entire plot out when we were chatting one night. We are so weak for little ViTri and I definitely need to write about them more often (and will be; this might be the first in a collection). Some might notice that this fic is a bit of an early parallel to my first ViTri fic, a skin shed sixteen years past. It was a fun revisit eighteen months later!

There's blood. Blood on the floor, on his hands, on Trip's face, a sick-smelling vile blood. _Not normal_. He stares at his palms in confusion as he feels something erupt from deep inside of him. There’s a ringing in his ears.

"E! E, E, E..."

He hears it, even processes that yes, that is his nickname, because he is the only child from the E prototype that is still alive and so he may be called _E_ by the staff, but he can't conceptualize why anyone would say anything to him. There's Trip, on the floor. There's blood. So much. He runs his hand over his face, tastes it, and it's a moment before he realizes the keening sound is himself, whatever that thing is inside of him.

And then one of the nurses is pulling him up. The meaty one, with large breasts and a no-nonsense manner, the kindest one who will not last much longer here because she is kind, because she doesn’t ignore things during checkups like she is supposed to and asks too many questions and looks pained and disturbed at every turn, because when a child dies she stands there with her mouth a hard line and tears in her eyes while the other nurses just cart the corpse away and change the sheets on the bed, things they will probably do now that Trip is…. Her hands are beneath his arms, just by his armpits, as she lifts him up and back.

"Go get Dr ______!" An orderly shouting to another. There must be a third adult here. _Why are there so many, and why can't they fix this?_ But the woman holding his arms tightens his grip, and he isn't sure if it's because she hates this particular doctor as much as he does, the doctor in charge of him, because she is kind and knows what happens behind closed doors, or if it's because he is pitching forward, and then there's nothing but darkness.

 

-

 

He awakens to cold. He knows, but he still slides his hand up the cot beside him, feels the cold emptiness next to him that should be a small warm person.

And then he remembers, and he begins to hyperventilate almost immediately. Because he's gone. There's noone there.

He remembers then.

_Trip looks sick. He’s shaking, pale, nearly in the fetal position as he moans and whimpers on the bed. He looks like he’s going to vomit, which he seems to do a lot. Usually he recovers immediately, wipes his mouth and laughs and runs off down the hall. There have even been times when Virus instigated it, when he shoved fingers down the younger boy’s throat to prompt him to expel a certain experimental drug he knew would go badly and in those moments, too, Trip would bounce off unfazed by an act that always made Virus nauseous for hours. That loss of bodily control, even for a moment, always disgusted and horrified him. Even watching others be sick makes him uneasy, and so he fears Trip being sick now._

_He doesn't know why he moves regardless, why he sits on the bed beside him. "Don't throw up," is all he says, and he knows he sounds irritated._

_It doesn't take Trip long to react, to curl his body around Virus' waist, small fingers tangling in his shirt. He's hot, too hot; Virus can feel the fever pulsing through him. He smells faintly, that hotsick smell mingling with that little boy smell he always has, the scent Virus inhales every night when they sleep together._

_"What did they do to you?" But he doesn't expect an answer. Not only is Trip in no position to speak, but he's not old enough to understand anything anyway. Too stupid. But Virus understands this. He's had nights like this, more than he cares to count. Those little shudders going through him, the occasional whimper, are all to be expected. But he's too hot here..._

_It hits him then. Will he die tonight? Is this the end? He doesn't look too good. He'll just be a body soon enough. And then they'll come and take the body away and burn it and give his bed to someone else and they'll all probably be relieved that he's gone and... he wonders who will replace him. Another boy, another number, but he will probably hate this one. Because he can't possibly be like Trip. I'll just be alone again, which is okay. I'm used to it. I was alone for three years before he came. It's only been a year. No reason to get so attached. He's just a body, even now. He startles himself then, because why should he even care. He tentatively pats Trip's head. "Stop doing that. Stop shaking." It will be fine. It will be fine. Because it seems to work. He's quieting down even more. Virus finds himself breathing a little easier. He'll still be in this bed tomorrow. It's fine._

_And then Trip vomits. It's unexpected, so unexpected that Virus yelps and nearly fell off the bed. He opens his mouth to snap at him, to tell him he'd just done exactly what he hadn't wanted him to do, and then he realizes something._

_Blood. There's blood on his hands, on the sheets, on Trip's face._

_Something inside of him breaks then. It's too much too much too much. Nobody can lose this much blood and survive. No. It's not that much. It's too much to come out of his mouth. He's going to die unless it gets back in there. He's doing something with his hands, but he can't register what his own body is doing. I don't want to be alone again._

_Trip groans against him. He seems confused, but he doesn't fight. He's not the Trip I know anymore. He's not even Trip. He's gone. He's already dead, maybe. And he's grabbing his face, grabbing both of their faces, fingers in Trip's mouth as he attempts to replace the blood, give it back to him so he doesn't die die die. And then he’s no longer groaning, no longer breathing, it seems, and Virus feels a light go off around him although he can still see._

He remembers, and he leans his head over the edge of the bed and vomits.

 

-

 

 _I want to see Dr. _______ His voice sounds eerily composed, even to himself, but what would normally please him doesn't now. _I need to fix that. I need to return to normal._ He knows that right now he is behaving as damaged goods, which means he won’t last very long here.

"He said you should rest." The kind nurse. Virus almost feels bad that it has to be her to clean up his mess. Almost.

 _I want to see Dr. _______ he repeats. He realizes then that he isn’t sure what he is speaking aloud and what he is keeping to himself. _Did I even hear myself at all?_ He wonders absently if he’s already begun to channel Trip, the deceased one, because they were once the same, so logically, if one dies, the other must be both. He doesn’t think he can survive that level of obliviousness.

And then she sighs, clearly frustrated, reminding him that there is another person in the room. There is a bruise on her shin that was doubtlessly not there this morning.

He lets her take his hand, pull him upright and along with her. He doesn’t dare look back, because he fears looking at the empty bed. He fears looking at the changed sheets. He fears looking at the new, second shadow he is so sure prowls behind him now.

 

-

 

_What will happen to his body?_

The doctor only stares at him strangely. 

Normally Virus is afraid of him, though he's learned to hide it well, but now he doesn't care what happens to himself. _Will he go in the incinerator?_

"E." 

_The ones who die don't get graves, do they? Not even one of those Buddhist sticks? I don't think he's Buddhist._

"E. Don't pick at the walls. You haven't done that in a while."

Virus looks at his fingers. Broken nails and white dust. Yes, he picked at the walls as a child, when he was first left here. He stood in corners and faced the walls and nervously tapped them with his nails, scraped and picked at them until he could chip away at the paint, dig out the grout between tiles _. I did it because of you, you dumb fuck. I did it because my mom left me alone in this strange place and the man who said he was going to take care of me for the next nine years raped me and I was lonely and scared and confused, a child who already had the varnish of childhood stripped away from him, who watched all the other kids around him die in horrific experiments that he too, endured, a child who didn't die but didn't sleep either, and stood in the corner and tapped the walls with tired tired tired fingers because he could survive anything except for the loneliness._ He’s pretty sure he didn’t say any of that, but he can’t be sure as he stares at his fingers and asks again, _What will happen to his body?_

"Why does it concern you?" He sounds irritated now, and Virus wonders if he did indeed speak aloud.

_How hot does it have to be to burn the skulls? That's the hardest. The brain... so much wet inside that bone. I read it's better to take them out first, before you burn the body. Did he have much in there? In his skull?_

The doctor sits back slowly and raises a leg, rests his ankle on the opposite knee. He takes a deep breath and holds it, tapping his knee with a single finger. He's beginning to look alarmed as opposed to merely irritated, and considering what he does for a living, this is impressive. If only Virus could be bothered to marvel at this.

_Isn't it irritating? Having to get rid of bodies? Death kind of annoys me. So inconvenient. Now someone else will be in that bed._

"Why. Does. It. Concern. You."

_I got used to him. Having to get used to new people is difficult. Did the sheets on his bed already get changed? His blood was all over them. I..._

"He's alive."

He starts so suddenly he almost falls out of his chair. _Alive, alive, alive_. "I don't believe you. There was too much blood."

"E. What's wrong with you? There was barely anything. You've bled far more than that."

"So let me see him." His voice sounds overeager when he hears it again.

He stands up then, straightens his lab coat and sighs. "You didn't answer me. You know, we've considered rehabilitating you apart from him. Your attachment isn't healthy; it might prevent either one of you from being useful if you're apt to fall apart this easily just because he's gone. It was great in the beginning, because you got him to behave, and he made you more.... _eager to please_. It was even a fun experiment, to watch you two play together, but now it's becoming a nuisance."

Virus feels his gut drop. Apart from him. It had never even occurred to him that they might be forced apart by a circumstance other than death, that he'd care if they were. He isn't sure who he is anymore when he says "I'll stop cooperating if you don't let me see him anymore."

"Then we'd dispose of you."

"I'm the best patient you have. I'm your favorite." He almost spits the word. _But death should bother me. All I've ever cared about is surviving. Right...?_ Then, before he can stop himself. "Give him back."

The man before him sighs again, spreads his hands and clasps them together. "I said we considered it. Not that we are. I decided it was for the best, better to risk a future failure than to commit an act to produce a certain one." There is a look in his eyes that says more though. _You owe me now._ And Virus knows he does.

"Oh."

"Come with me," he beckons to him, clearly irritated again. "He's in the ICU. That last test didn't go well for him but he'll be fine in a few days."

 _What'd you do to him?_ He wants to ask, but he remains silent as he follows him from the office and down the hall. He finds himself unexpectedly embarrassed, uncomfortable with his outburst. _Outbursts._ Because he’s been a wreck ever since he saw the blood. Something deep within him is dragged forth when it comes to the younger boy, and he isn't sure how he feels about this.

 

-

 

Trip looks too small, too fragile, propped up on the hospital bed as opposed to his regular cot, but Virus knows he is soft and warm and full of blood and therefore still alive, which he never quite believed until he lay eyes on him.

"Hi."

Trip cracks an eye open, brilliant green beneath red eyelashes that are alarmingly long, the lashes only women and small children ever have. "Mm." Trip coughs, clear his throat and sighs. His voice is small and too damp when he speaks, "Hey."

"You're alive." He stands awkwardly a meter in front of the bed.

He opens both eyes now and gives him that stupid look he always gives Virus when he talks too much, when he states the obvious, when he preens and purrs to the staff until he gets his way. Words never worked very well for Trip, and he thinks wasting breath on them is stupid. "Yea."

"That's good." He pauses, "do you need anything?" He can feel the stare of the doctor behind him, the orderly by Trip's bed, and it's all he can do not to hiss at them, to scream at them to leave them alone.

Trip twitches his head then, looks right at the nurse with a belligerent look, as belligerent as an exhausted, ill seven-year-old can be. And he eyes Virus, a corner of his mouth twitching. "Sit." Sit so we can talk, too close and too quiet for them to hear.

Virus knows this. They can understand each other without speaking. So he steps towards him, pushes the IV stand out of the way climbs up onto the bed beside him, slips under the covers, ignoring the shuffle of feet as the nurse startles and reaches towards him, ignoring the shake of the doctor’s head telling her to stop, ignoring the way both adults withdraw to the doorway, unwilling to leave but giving them the mask of privacy they both know is a lie.

He still smells sick beneath the sterile scent of the pillow, but Virus supposes he can’t be contagious and even if he is, he doesn’t care. He wants to breathe the same air as him, nuzzle his face and feel his hot breath over his mouth and his small forehead against his own. He wants to cup his fat cheeks and run fingers down his neck to squeeze his shoulders, coil his arms around his waist and pull him close and hold that position until they both fall asleep. Because it's what you do, when you're the same as someone else, when your world only comes into focus when they exist beside you. You sleep cheekbone to cheekbone. You keep them in your sight. You match your heartbeat to theirs.

But he can't. Because people are watching. So he presses the pads of his fingers into Trip's scalp, curls his fingers slowly in and scratches his head in the slow, rhythmic patterns he knows the younger boy prefers. It's the closest he dares right now. "Don't do that again."

Trip only grunts, gives him that _look_ again.

Virus lets a hand slip down his back, bumps his chin briefly against Trip’s forehead and sighs. “That’s right.”


End file.
